[sword-devel] Maybe OT, but perhaps relevant

[Jónatas Ferreira]

Hi Jeff,

Here's what I think about this subject.

Being open source software doesn't say a thing about the possibility  
of charging for it. That kind of thing is ruled by the license  
agreement. (The same procedure as for proprietary software.) As far  
as I know, Sword's license is "GPL" with some libraries in "Lesser  
GPL". These licenses are designed to allow you to do whatever you  
want, except transforming open source projects into proprietary  
software. So you always have to provide the source code and allow  
everyone the same license you were given. You can charge for it, if  
you want. Many companies charge for Linux, for instance, of for  
OpenOffice. This is legal.

That being said, I think that company may be crossing the line anyway  
because some of the modules used for sword have special licenses due  
to the authorization given by copyright holder that restricts the use  
of those libraries to the sword project and forbids anyone from  
charging for those libraries. If they are doing so, then crosswire  
should contact them and ask them to remove such libraries from their  
CDs. If some of the companies that are allowing the use of their work  
comes to the knowledge of this practice, they may require the removal  
of the libraries from crosswire too. And this would be a huge problem.

Greetings,
Jónatas

Em 2006/05/27, às 05:38, Jeff Needle escreveu:

> Sword is open source software.  Theoretically you can't charge for it.
>
> I got hoodwinked with a software company called Think Well (they're  
> on the web).  They offer 4 cd's for the cost of shipping.  Buried  
> in the end user agreement, as far out of sight as they can make it,  
> they indicate that only two of the CD's are really free.  If you  
> don't return the other two in 30 days, they ding you twenty five  
> bucks for each CD!
>
> One of the CD's was Sword.  In effect, these guys are selling Sword  
> for twenty five bucks.  They're doing the same thing with Open Office.
>
> Isn't this against the rules?  Can something be done to stop them?
>
> Thanks.
>
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